Top Science News

January 1, 2026

Top Headlines

This 100-year-old Teaching Method Is Beating Modern Preschools

Jan. 1, 2026 A first-of-its-kind national trial shows that public Montessori preschool students enter kindergarten with stronger reading, memory, and executive function skills than their peers. These gains don’t fade — they grow over time, bucking a ...

MIT Study Shows High-fat Diets Give Liver Cancer a Dangerous Head Start

Dec. 31, 2025 A high-fat diet does more than overload the liver with fat. New research from MIT shows that prolonged exposure to fatty foods can push liver cells into a survival mode that quietly raises the risk of cancer. Faced with ongoing metabolic stress, ...

Nearly 70% of U.S. Adults Could Now Be Classified as Obese

Dec. 31, 2025 A major update to how obesity is defined could push U.S. obesity rates to nearly 70%, according to a large new study. The change comes from adding waist and body fat measurements to BMI, capturing people who were previously considered healthy. Many ...

What If AI Becomes Conscious and We Never Know

Dec. 31, 2025 A philosopher at the University of Cambridge says there’s no reliable way to know whether AI is conscious—and that may remain true for the foreseeable future. According to Dr. Tom McClelland, consciousness alone isn’t the ethical tipping point ...

Astronomers Ring in the New Year with a Stunning Galaxy Collision

Dec. 31, 2025 The Champagne Cluster is a rare and beautiful example of two galaxy clusters smashing together. Its festive name comes from both its New Year’s Eve discovery and its bubbly appearance in space. Images reveal superheated gas and galaxies spread ...

New Images Reveal What Really Happens When Stars Explode

Dec. 31, 2025 New high-resolution images show that novae are anything but simple stellar fireworks. One exploded with multiple gas streams colliding almost immediately, while another shockingly delayed its eruption for more than 50 days before unleashing a ...

A Missing Protein May Be Aging Your Immune System

Dec. 31, 2025 As we age, our immune system quietly loses its edge, and scientists have uncovered a surprising reason why. A protein called platelet factor 4 naturally declines over time, allowing blood stem cells to multiply too freely and drift toward unhealthy, ...

This Strange Ancient Snake Was Hiding in a Museum for Decades

Dec. 31, 2025 A strange little snake fossil found on England’s south coast has finally revealed its secrets—more than 40 years after it was discovered. The newly named Paradoxophidion richardoweni lived around 37 million years ago, during a time when Britain ...

Researchers Find ADHD Strengths Linked to Better Mental Health

Dec. 31, 2025 New research reveals a brighter side of ADHD, showing that adults who recognize and use their strengths feel happier, healthier, and less stressed. People with ADHD were more likely to identify traits like creativity, humor, and hyperfocus as ...

Microplastics Are Leaking Invisible Chemical Clouds Into Water

Dec. 31, 2025 Microplastics in rivers, lakes, and oceans aren’t just drifting debris—they’re constantly leaking invisible clouds of chemicals into the water. New research shows that sunlight drives this process, causing different plastics to release ...

Scientists Just Found the Best Places to Look for Ancient Life on Mars

Dec. 31, 2025 Mars once had sprawling river systems that rivaled major watersheds on Earth, and scientists have now identified the biggest ones for the first time. Researchers mapped 16 massive drainage basins where water likely flowed long enough to support ...

Even One Drink a Day May Raise Mouth Cancer Risk

Dec. 30, 2025 New research suggests that even light alcohol use may carry serious risks. A large study in India found that drinking just one standard drink a day is linked to a roughly 50% higher risk of mouth cancer, with the greatest danger tied to locally ...

Latest Headlines

updated 7:41am EST

What Cannabis Really Does for Chronic Pain

Dec. 30, 2025 Cannabis products with higher THC levels may slightly reduce chronic pain, particularly nerve pain, according to a review of multiple clinical trials. The improvement was small and short-lived, while ...

Scientists Turn Carrot Waste Into Protein People Prefer

Dec. 30, 2025 Scientists have discovered a clever way to turn carrot processing leftovers into a nutritious and surprisingly appealing protein. By growing edible fungi on carrot side streams, researchers produced ...

Swearing May Unlock Hidden Strength, Study Finds

Dec. 30, 2025 Letting a swear word fly when you’re struggling might do more than blow off steam—it could actually make you stronger. Research published by the American Psychological Association found that ...

Scientists Replayed Evolution and Found a Surprise

Dec. 30, 2025 Environmental change doesn’t affect evolution in a single, predictable way. In large-scale computer simulations, scientists discovered that some fluctuating conditions help populations evolve ...

Earth’s Worst Extinction Was Followed by a Shockingly Fast Ocean Comeback

Dec. 30, 2025 A spectacular fossil trove on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen shows that marine life made a stunning comeback after Earth’s greatest extinction. Tens of thousands of fossils reveal fully aquatic ...

Physicists Close in on the Elusive Sterile Neutrino

Dec. 30, 2025 Neutrinos may be nearly invisible, but they play a starring role in the Universe. Long-standing anomalies had hinted at a mysterious fourth “sterile” neutrino, potentially rewriting the laws of ...

Time Runs Faster on Mars and Scientists Just Proved It

Dec. 30, 2025 Thanks to Einstein’s relativity, time flows differently on Mars than on Earth. NIST scientists have now nailed down the difference, showing that Mars clocks tick slightly faster—and fluctuate ...

MIT Scientists Find a Way to Rejuvenate the Immune System as We Age

Dec. 29, 2025 As the immune system weakens with age, scientists have found a way to restore some of its lost strength. By delivering mRNA to the liver, they created a temporary source of immune-boosting signals ...

The Brain Has a Hidden Language and Scientists Just Found It

Dec. 29, 2025 Researchers have created a protein that can detect the faint chemical signals neurons receive from other brain cells. By tracking glutamate in real time, scientists can finally see how neurons ...

A Gold Catalyst Just Broke a Decade Old Green Chemistry Record

Dec. 29, 2025 A new catalyst design could transform how acetaldehyde is made from renewable bioethanol. Researchers found that a carefully balanced mix of gold, manganese, and copper creates a powerful synergy ...

A Christmas Tree 80 Light-Years Wide Appears in Space

Dec. 25, 2025 This Christmas, astronomers are highlighting a spectacular region of space that looks remarkably like a glowing holiday tree. Known as NGC 2264, this distant star-forming region sits about 2,700 ...

What You Eat Could Decide the Planet’s Future

Dec. 24, 2025 What we put on our plates may matter more for the climate than we realize. Researchers found that most people, especially in wealthy countries, are exceeding a “food emissions budget” needed to ...

Scientists Reverse Alzheimer’s in Mice and Restore Memory

Dec. 24, 2025 Alzheimer’s has long been considered irreversible, but new research challenges that assumption. Scientists discovered that severe drops in the brain’s energy supply help drive the disease—and ...

Scientists Found a Way to Restore Brain Blood Flow in Dementia

Dec. 25, 2025 A new study suggests that dementia may be driven in part by faulty blood flow in the brain. Researchers found that losing a key lipid causes blood vessels to become overactive, disrupting circulation ...

Why Some People Keep Making the Same Bad Decisions

Dec. 26, 2025 Everyday sights and sounds quietly shape the choices people make, often without them realizing it. New research suggests that some individuals become especially influenced by these environmental ...

Why Consciousness Can’t Be Reduced to Code

Dec. 24, 2025 The familiar fight between “mind as software” and “mind as biology” may be a false choice. This work proposes biological computationalism: the idea that brains compute, but not in the ...

AI Supercharges Scientific Output While Quality Slips

Dec. 24, 2025 AI writing tools are supercharging scientific productivity, with researchers posting up to 50% more papers after adopting them. The biggest beneficiaries are scientists who don’t speak English as a ...

We Are Living in a Golden Age of Species Discovery

Dec. 24, 2025 The search for life on Earth is speeding up, not slowing down. Scientists are now identifying more than 16,000 new species each year, revealing far more biodiversity than expected across animals, ...

A Surprising Brain Cleanup Reduced Epileptic Seizures and Restored Memory

Dec. 25, 2025 A new study suggests temporal lobe epilepsy may be linked to early aging of certain brain cells. When researchers removed these aging cells in mice, seizures dropped, memory improved, and some ...

Why Evolution Rewarded Ants That Sacrificed Protection

Dec. 22, 2025 Some ants thrive by choosing numbers over strength. Instead of heavily protecting each worker, they invest fewer resources in individual armor and produce far more ants. Larger colonies then ...

An 11-Year-Old Needed Two New Organs and Doctors Made History

Dec. 19, 2025 In a rare and historic achievement, Children’s Hospital Colorado successfully completed its first dual heart and liver transplant in a pediatric patient. The life-saving surgery was performed on ...

Fusion Reactors May Create Dark Matter Particles

Dec. 28, 2025 Researchers say fusion reactors might do more than generate clean energy—they could also create particles linked to dark matter. A new theoretical study shows how neutrons inside future fusion ...

Your Roommate’s Genes May Be Shaping Your Gut Bacteria

Dec. 23, 2025 Scientists studying thousands of rats discovered that gut bacteria are shaped by both personal genetics and the genetics of social partners. Some genes promote certain microbes that can spread ...

A New Drug Could Stop Alzheimer’s Before Memory Loss Begins

Dec. 22, 2025 New research suggests Alzheimer’s may start far earlier than previously thought, driven by a hidden toxic protein in the brain. Scientists found that an experimental drug, NU-9, blocks this early ...

Ancient Sewers Expose a Hidden Health Crisis in Roman Britain

Dec. 21, 2025 Sediments from a Roman latrine at Vindolanda show soldiers were infected with multiple intestinal parasites, including roundworm, whipworm, and Giardia — the first time Giardia has been identified ...

Deaths of Despair Were Rising Long Before Opioids

Dec. 20, 2025 Long before opioids flooded communities, something else was quietly changing—and it may have helped set the stage for today’s crisis. A new study finds that as church attendance dropped among ...

The 98% Mystery: Scientists Just Cracked the Code on “junk DNA” Linked to Alzheimer’s

Dec. 19, 2025 Researchers have revealed that so-called “junk DNA” contains powerful switches that help control brain cells linked to Alzheimer’s disease. By experimentally testing nearly 1,000 DNA switches ...

NASA Just Caught a Rare Glimpse of an Interstellar Comet

Dec. 20, 2025 An instrument aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft captured rare ultraviolet observations of an interstellar comet while Earth-based telescopes were blinded by the Sun. The spacecraft’s unique ...

Your Body Feels Cold in Two Different Ways

Dec. 18, 2025 Researchers have uncovered that the body uses different molecular systems to sense cold in the skin versus internal organs. This explains why surface chills feel very different from cold experienced ...

Study Links Full-Fat Cheese to Lower Dementia Risk

Dec. 21, 2025 Eating full-fat cheese and cream may be associated with a lower risk of dementia, according to a large study that tracked people for more than 25 years. Those who consumed higher amounts of these ...